Plastic and glass parts are often painted and coated with different materials to change their visual appearance. For instance, plastic parts may first receive one or more basecoats of paint or primer. Basecoats can fill in defects left over from manufacturing and handling as well as provide a more durable and adhesive surface for subsequent coatings. A topcoat may also be applied to protect the basecoat or to otherwise alter the appearance of the part. Both basecoats and topcoats can be applied to parts as they travel about a conveyor line. It can also be desirable to produce a reflective or metallic appearance by applying a reflective metal coating. The metal coating can be applied between the basecoat and the topcoat, on top of a basecoat without a topcoat, below a topcoat without a basecoat, or in any other combination of basecoats and/or topcoats. For example, a thin layer of metal can be deposited onto the surface of the part using an evaporation process such as that available with a batch metallizer. However, batch metallizers and other conventional assemblies can require the collecting and racking of large quantities of parts which can, in turn, create high cycle times for the metallizing process.
Accordingly, a need exists for alternative metallizer assemblies and conveyor systems for metallizing parts.